


in time, saves nine

by Legendaerie



Category: Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: City Elf Origin, F/M, Interspecies Romance, Mild mid-game spoilers, Pining, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-07
Updated: 2015-09-07
Packaged: 2018-04-19 14:01:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4748987
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Legendaerie/pseuds/Legendaerie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A rose in the middle of the Blight, something scarlet and tender and yet still covered in thorns, cut away in its prime. She is many things to Alistair, and predictable will never entirely be one of them.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>The first time she surprises him, they haven't even met yet.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	in time, saves nine

**Author's Note:**

> HhhhHHHH so I've never actually A) written DA fic B) actually tried to write one of these list fics but i don't caRE i have a lot of feels about this cinnamon roll and refuse to look up ANY fan work until I have finished the game because so far I know LITERALLY nothing about Origins other than what I have actually played and it is a wonderful experience, thanks.
> 
> Anyway. Mild spoilers, some nods to canon and very small liberties taken. Leaving this Warden nameless since that's how we write blank slate protags over in the Harvest Moon fandom so 
> 
> ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

I.

  

The first time she surprises him, they haven't even met yet.

Word travels fast in any kind of camp, and he hears about her before she's hardly left footprints in the dirt there. Duncan had returned from a social visit in Denerim with a new recruit in tow, some city elf whose neck had been in the noose when he arrived. Some dog they had been ready to put down, gone rabid and bitten her masters. So he expects some hardened criminal, something sleek and feral and tough.

But what he sees is an elven woman, barely as tall as his collarbones, with the scent of blood on her formal clothes and steel in her eyes, who calls him out on his teasing the Mage in honest syllables framed by soft lips. What he sees is bright red hair, braided in a queenly style, and a silent step as she crosses the camp. What he sees is someone barely out of girlhood who would buy a guards dinner to feed a deserter, who would walk unarmed into a pen with a wounded Mabari to treat his injuries, who would ask how to help a dying human soldier.

"The Wardens need more people like her," Duncan remarked, as they warmed themselves by the fire and let her explore the camp. "People who know that courage isn't always a drawn blade."

"The _world_ needs more like her," he had echoed, and quietly wondered if the Wardens weren't being selfish for taking her for theirs.

 

II.

  

The second time is when he sees her fight, and he realizes he hadn't been that wrong about her after all.

She fights fast, and dirty, and efficient, in the kind of quietly desperate way that reminds him of the soldier who knows that reinforcements will not arrive. Every stroke looks like her last, her whole body moving with each swing, and there is something not quite beautiful in the way that she swings a blade. A tenseness in her body like a violin string, and the violence of combat makes her sing.

"That doesn't look like something they'd teach a city elf," he had remarked on their way back from the Wilds, meaning to compliment her.

"It wasn't," she had said softly, dark eyes deep and still like a bottomless pool. "But life there made learning such skills a necessity."

It is only later from Duncan that he hears what she did, what she went through even before arriving there; slaughtered half a castle's worth of guards and an Arl's son after they kidnapped, raped and murdered their way through her friends. And then he thinks of how she is surrounded by human men in this camp, of how she treated the deserter and the dog, and realizes that the world would never have appreciated her anyway.

 

III.

 

The third time is in Lothering, after.

After everything went to shit, after Flemeth sent her vicious daughter along with them to try to pull together their shattered world, after Duncan and the King were thrown to the Darkspawn like pieces of rotten meat, after the Wardens themselves were blamed for their deaths. After all of that and then some, and he felt like no one cared.

But she had pulled him aside, her voice soft and her expression steady, and let him talk. Soothed him with kind words and gentle promises of sympathy, gave him hope with the idea of a funeral after the end of the world. Gently chided Morrigan when she had torn at his weakness like a scavenging bird.

And he had seen the rose, then, blooming in the snarl of thorns around a decaying fence. It was the same crimson as her hair, and it smelled soft and sweet when he reached out. So he borrowed a dagger from their supplies when she was bartering with some thorny merchant and cut the blossom loose.

He only hoped that this, too, would retain its luster even after he took it for his own.

 

IV.

 

The fourth time is in Redcliffe.

And he isn't surprised when she is able to recruit every able body in the town, willing or not. He isn't surprised when they only lose a couple soldiers in that endless night of battle. No, these things don't surprise him. Not from her. Not anymore.

This surprise isn't pleasant, and comes with the protesting grate of a cell door as she lets a Blood Mage walk free.

"He wants to make things right," She says quietly, wearing the same tight-jawed expression she uses when she smiles off a "knife-ears" comment, and it hurts to have that mask used on him. But not as much as it hurts when his fingernails dig into his palms through his gloves as he watches a monster walk free.

"Oh, I'm sure he'll be a big help. Just like he _helped_ Arl Eamon." Maybe she flinches from his tone; if it does, it serves her right. "Do you really think that if he makes a break for freedom and we stand in his way, that he'll so much as give pause before he rips the very marrow from our bones?"

He realizes later that it's fear just as much as anger that drives him; fear that she will get them killed, get herself killed in her bleeding-heart foolishness that fuels him just as much as a Templar's anger at letting a maleficar walk away. Fear that he won't be there when - not if, when - the Mage turns on her, and uses her very life force to give himself strength. A fear that she doesn't seem to feel.

And maybe that's why her silence hurts the most of all.

 

V.

 

The fifth is one he doesn't realize until later.

It was strange, certainly, to see her on the doorstep of his new house after the war; but he was almost more surprised by how happy he was to see her. Even if the weariness in the corners of her eyes felt out of place at such a peaceful time, he welcomed her there and was on the verge of asking her to stay for dinner, or perhaps forever. To tell her how thankful he was of all she had done, not just for himself but for everyone. And then the demon's dream started to fall apart at the edges, and they were fighting side by side and he didn't even get enough time to say he was thankful before he was ripped away from her again.

Yet what was even more terrifying than the knowledge that he had been so easily fooled into dreaming; more terrifying than the thought of such a happy future not existing; worse still was the way she plunged back into the nightmare, and he had his first real taste of what it might be like to never see her again. Her hand was raised just before she dissolved in front of him - whether to reach out or wave goodbye, he will never be sure.

But he knows now that she belonged in his dream of the ideal life anyway, even if the demon hadn't meant for her to appear.

 

VI.

 

The sixth is more of a gradual thing.

They all act a little differently in camp than they do out in the field; talk a little more, banter, relax. But she seems to transform when they're not weighed down by war and duty, and she had a whole spectrum of emotions he'd never seen from her before. Human emotions, flawed emotions, like frustration as she repairs a torn belt and mutters vicious curses into the leather, or impatience as she burns her mouth on soup. Some things were always there, like her dogged persistence as she peppers Sten with questions about his likes and dislikes, but are just so much more animated now. Her entire body emotes now, in subtle little ways; how she leans in when Leliana waves the legend of Andraste, how her mouth purses into a grin when Wynne recounts an exploit of her youth, how her dark eyes shine with sympathy as Morrigan speaks of her isolation.

He never really thought of her as a private person before, but he is glad she is relaxing around them now; unfolding like a blossom, filling the air with a sweet scent, and his heartbeat stumbles when she catches his eye and flashes him a dazzling smile. If her public smiles were stars, her smiles in camp are like the sun, and his cheeks are a burnt red for several minutes afterwards.

 

VII.

 

The seventh isn't so much his surprise at her actions - of _course_ she will take in the Crow assassin, let him follow her around without so much as a concerned glance, trusting him not to kill her as much as she trusts the others to stop him if he does - but his own reaction.

A slow, wicked burn coils deep in his stomach when he sees how openly she seeks the Crow's company, her cheeks coloring at his no doubt lewd remarks and her lips parting around an incredulous laugh. His ears buzz with the sound of Zevran's rich, rolling syllables, shoulders rigid with the awareness of how close they are standing and how similar they look.  Like a matched set, like a sword and a scabbard-- no, he won't make that kind of comparison, she means more to him than any tool and the sexual connotations make him almost nauseous. They look comfortable together, like he hasn't seen her in a while.

But it's not until they meet the Dalish that he understands her motives; not until he sees the sheer enthusiasm with which she speaks to everyone in camp and watches her pace slow with every new careful greeting of 'outsider.' Not until they take a break in camp that he sees the way she wraps her arms around her legs and looks so small and alone even in the middle of dinner.

"It must be hard for her," Leliana comments, no doubt following his gaze across the campfire, her sweet lilting voice a mere whisper beside him. "She said she was raised in an alienage, but so far the friendliest elf we've come across is from Antiva and was hired to kill her."

And then he feels guilt and shame for not understanding; feels just as bad as that old man on Lake Calenhad who insulted every aspect of her and then laughed it off by calling himself blunt. Just as bad as every ignorant bastard who was either baffled or enraged to see a third class citizen and a woman in such a high position. They may both be Wardens, but that doesn't mean she wouldn't still feel lonely.

He walks across the camp to sit beside her, watches her watch him with some measure of curiosity, then he holds out a loose fist.

"I've got a grasshopper here. Whose shirt should I shove it down?" he eggs, even though he's already mentally picked Zevran.

She gives him a stern look, though her eyes don't have the same power as Wynne's would have. "No one's shirt," she protests, nudging him in the side with an elbow, and he feels hot and foolish. It was a poorly planned gesture, of course she wouldn't want him to--

"Maybe Sten," she adds quietly, so soft he barely hears her but he feels her breath ghost over his ear.

"Are you mad? I don't think I can even reach high enough to do that, and if he catches me he'll snap my arms off."

"It might be funny." "And I might die for your amusement. Would that be worth it?" She shakes her head in reply, shoving him again, but he thinks that he'd do it anyway just to get her to laugh like that. Unfortunately, the grasshopper decides to bite him then; he swears and shakes his hand open in surprise, and the grasshopper leaps and soars to land directly in the pot of soup.

"Alistair," comes Wynne's voice, in full motherly mode, but he barely hears her over the Warden's gentle laughter and the sound of his own thundering heart.

The rose is still in his tent, nourished by river water in a battered silver vase, out of place amid his weapons and armor and dirty laundry, but having taken it now makes him feel greedy. He should have left it to grow, to bloom and fruit and die naturally.

But he is even more glad, selfishly, that he didn't.

 

VIII.

 

The eighth time is in Orzammar.

He probably couldn't have picked a worse time for it, honestly, but being underground and so far removed from growing things makes him think about the rose. So he starts carrying it around, tucked gently into the hollow of his breastplate, and he just happens to have it with him when she turns to speak to him just outside the tavern. He thinks maybe he could blame the two rounds of ale she bought for the entire house, but it's actually more the sharp eye of Wynne staring him down.

The last time he remembers being so nervous was probably at his own Joining. She teases him at first, if it's his new weapon and if this means he's irritated at her; but then she softens and smiles and thanks him for it and he feels as though--

He feels--

"That wasn't so bad now, was it?" Wynne encourages him later, when the Warden is just out of earshot talking to a dwarf in Dust town.

"I think I blacked out near the end there," he confesses, still feeling a little light headed and hot. "She... did like it, right?"

Just then, she throws a glance over her shoulder, as if to check that he's still there. And a smile spreads across her face, sweet and open as the blossom he gave her mere minutes ago before she turns back to her business. She doesn't see him suddenly get the urge to lean against the nearest wall, not even feeling the discomfort of his armor digging into his arm as he waited for his legs to regain their strength.

"Yes, Alistair," Wynne replies to a question he doesn't recall asking. By the way her mouth is pursed like she's laughing at him, he's not sure he wants to know. "She did."

 

IX.

 

The ninth time is when she holds his hand in the Dead Trenches, reaching out blindly to squeeze his fingers as the archdemon soared above head; it is the first time he ever sees her as afraid, as weak, as small as he feels. He squeezes back, every sense heightened by the sensation of being on the edge of something great and terrible, and knows that this is the mark of both a beginning and an end.

After that, he can't keep track anymore.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are (more than) welcome, just... watch your spoilers?


End file.
